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I sucked it up and said OK. How awful to have a passion so intense it dictates your every breath and yet to lack the moral backbone to pursue it.
There is a horrible irony in knowing that I spent most of my life running away from the things that would ultimately save me (honesty, truth, reality, love, self-acceptance) because I believed they would kill me.
Bach-Marcello Adagio
Chopin’s greatest nocturne – the one in C minor Op. 48/1
like talking to strangers. I read a book about depression once where the protagonist was so lonely she used to join queues simply for the human interaction. And while things
Her crazy and my crazy seemed to meet in the ether between us and form a solid shape that was unbreakable. It was some kind of fucked-up sexual, spiritual alchemy that neither of us could understand or even identify, but it was there, it was powerful and it was deep enough to make me sound like a massive prick when writing about
The sexual abuse of children. Some people read that phrase and feel appalled, some feel titillated, some feel angry, some turned on. It’s interesting to see that just by writing that phrase I want to disappear for a while and do something destructive, distractive, anything to avoid these feelings. Thirty years later I’m still right there, pinned down and in pain and feeling like it was all my fault. Just because I’ve written a few words about it. The inherent power of this shit to fuck you up with nothing more than a sideways sneer is terrifying.
Now Would All Freudians Please Stand Aside. This was from one of my favourite Glenn Gould quotes.
Beethoven’s Op. 109 Sonata and Bach’s Sixth Partita.
The hardest lesson I’ve learned is to relax and simply enjoy what is happening today, trusting that if I’m doing the right thing then the right things will happen in their own time.
The whole cosmic, self-help mantra of being given what you need when you need it, of needing to hit rock bottom, having to go through things rather than around them is, sadly, true.
There are not seven stages of grief. Not in my experience. Why does everything have to be boiled down into bite-sized, manage-able, understandable chunks? Are we that fucking stupid and incapable of living without definitives or corners or edges? There was just one long stage of hell. It would switch in an instant from absolute anger to inconsolable sadness to despair, hopelessness, an unfillable emptiness.
(Waking the Tiger) and the inner child (Homecoming). I know. Pass the bucket.
Now I learned, slowly, to simply sit and notice them with curiosity, no labels, stories or judgment. I would just see where in the body they were gathered (invariably the heart or stomach), watch them, experience the pain, sit with it. And I promise you, when you do that, it all starts to heal. Slowly but surely it starts to heal and soften and lessen.
‘Find what you love and let it kill you’
If you can get rid of your ego, it’s simple. If you can’t, it’ll never work. But the one thing that is abundantly clear is that the problem is you and never the other person.
The biggest killer in any relationship is point-scoring. The great Persian poet, Rumi, wrote, ‘somewhere out there, beyond ideas of right and wrong, there is a garden. I’ll meet you there.’
Celebrate being wrong. Come from a position of ‘I have got to work so fucking hard to make up for being wrong all the time in the hope she’ll forgive me’ and you’ll be golden. Treat every meal/outing/ walk/talk together as a first date with someone you are desperate to impress. Worry about what to wear, get anxious about whether or not you’ll get something in your teeth over dinner, wash your ball sack thoroughly on the off chance you’ll get lucky, bring flowers, ask for the most romantic table in the restaurant, be present and listen to every word spoken as if your life depended on it.
Take a vow that – barring infidelity or serious abuse ’ leaving is off the table. It is not even to be discussed. The starting point is you are together, a team, full stop, end of. Any problems, no matter how serious, are dealt with as a team. There is simply no walking away. And take that vow in the same way as smokers who have successfully quit have taken the same vow about cigarettes.
You’re simply committing to be with this person no matter what, to stand together, to fight alongside each other, to be a united front, to be bigger than the sum of your parts. It’s what you told her hundreds of times in the early days, what you’ve written to her thousands of times every time you texted you loved her, what you whispered in her ear every time you fucked. Man up, stick to your word, own it. Do not ask questions about each other’s pasts. Under no circumstances ask about exes, how many lovers they had, did they ever do anal with anyone, did they used to swallow, have you been to
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The best thing is that all of this can be summed up in two words: be kind. Do not confuse kindness with weakness. Kindness is a dying art. It is the single most important quality in this world and one which is sorely lacking.
T
‘To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist’. I think it’s the duty of all of us, no matter what we do to fill our time.
